Miami pre-show - Starck white

After the week we've had, and given the state we were in, its hard to describe quite how surreal it was to arrive at the Delano Hotel on Miami beach in the middle of the night, last night. This hotel was refurbished a couple of years ago, with interiors designed by Phillipe Starck, the well known architect, lemon squeezer designer and mad man. The lobby area alone is an exercise in grand theatre, perspective play, elemental interaction and scenic fantasy. Floaty white drapes drift in the evening breezes, monstrously large lamps sway and candles glow, gigantic chairs and tiny sofas, in arresting colours and tactile fabrics are artfully strewn around the place. Its Alice in Wonderland on acid. Quite enchanting, but a little overwhelming when all you really want to do is locate your room key and go to bed. The rooms themselves are decked entirely in white, everything, even the T.V. remote control is white. You feel like any minute now John Lennon's going to appear and burst into "Imagine there's no heaven...".

Strolled out and found a great bookshop, which was having a sale in its Art Books department (always a dangerous combination), so that was me sorted for the afternoon. Amongst other things, I picked up a huge pictorial tome on Christo's extraordinary "Wrapped Reichtag" project in Berlin. What an incredible event that was - there' a man with balls bigger than King Kong. Got the Phillipe Starck book too, whilst I was at it. Hey it was a sale. My bags will weigh a ton after this.

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Latest Willie's Diary

Within the bands entourage (certainly by comparison to the crews clockwork scheduling) travel departure times are often a little loose. This morning was especially so, due to three contradictory memos which had been emailed out last night and this morning.

There was a 6.30pm conference call arranged between Bono (Dublin), The Edge (Los Angeles), Steve Matthews (London) and myself (also London) to blow the cobwebs off our brains and discuss the reincarnation of the Vertigo Tour.

I was planning on resurrecting the tour diary today, being the day we were scheduled to fly to Auckland for the load-in tomorrow. However, its now old news that the remainder of the tour dates have been postponed, so Im not going anywhere further than the corner cafe. Its been a very weird week indeed - much akin to driving into a wall.